The area around St. Winifred’s was not the type of
neighborhood that would ever appear in a novel. What writer could make
anything of it? Gotham was the largest, most diverse, most exciting city in
America, so it was natural that so many books were set there. But the area
around St. Winifred was neither affluent or rundown, it was not riddled by
crime nor was it a shining beacon of urban safety. Its streets weren’t
empty after dark, but neither were they teaming with activity from dusk to
dawn. The residents were not predominantly black or white, Asian or
Hispanic. They were not a tight-knit community where everyone knew everyone
else, nor did they live in that state of urban apartheid where no living
soul will nod at a stranger on the street. It was, in short, so typical of
the real Gotham City, no writer would touch it. It lacked the extremes that
were the chief attraction of setting a story there.

Consider the church itself: it wasn’t the oldest
Catholic church in Gotham. It didn’t date back to a time when Catholic
meant “undesirable immigrant” to an established WASP population. There was
nothing particularly interesting in its stone walls or half-heartedly gothic
design. It wasn’t ignored by a jaded irreligious population, nor were its
services full of rapt and devout believers. Thus, when Amanda Caston didn’t
feel like cooking and left her townhouse to pick up a sandwich at the
bodega, she thought nothing of it as she passed a nun heading towards the
church. Miguel Ortiz passed two sisters on their way to the church, he
thought nothing of it. When Mr. and Mrs. Blagrove passed by and heard the
sounds of choir practice inside…

♫-Our
life, our sweetness, here below; O Ma-ri-a

…they thought nothing of it.

♫-Our
hope in sorrow and in woe; O Ma-ri-a

Sister Mary Pamela gave a volume dial a final touch
before turning from the boom box and rejoining the others.

“If this isn’t the absolute lowest moment in Gotham
Roguery, I’d like to know what is,” she hissed, tearing off her veil and
slapping it into the chest of a much taller and broader nun the way a
quarterback hands off a football.

“Petal, you’re green,” Harvey said, pulling off
his veil in the same way he used to loosen his tie after a grueling day in
court with hours of late-night work still ahead in his office. “You’re
green, Joker’s white, half our face is missing, and Victor walks around in a
cold suit. How else are we all supposed to get together without attracting
attention, hm? Couple nuns arriving at a church after dark, nobody even
notices.”

Unable to choose between Ingrid Bergman in The Bells
of St. Mary’s and Meryl Streep in Doubt, he opted for both.
They’d walked into the church together, Ingrid went down to the basement to
meet the others while Meryl walked the perimeter to spot the latecomers and
provide an escort for any not coming in pairs.

“Well, I think it’s a good idea,” Harley said, holding
the ends of her cord belt up to her guimpe to represent her missing
tassels.

“But she’s right,” Jonathan said, “The Iceberg is a bad
idea until we know what’s going on. The known hideouts are getting
bombed. I don’t want all of you coming to my place and leaving a trail
of breadcrumbs for the mad lair bomber.”

Two-Face looked at him, took out his coin, flipped it and
said “Admit it, you just like dressing up.”

There was a gargoyle Catwoman liked down the street
from the Wayne Tower. She mentioned it in the Cat-Tales stage show. “My
favorite perch,” she called it. Bruce remembered feeling oddly pleased as
he sat in the audience. Before the Wayne building had any meaning for her,
before she knew he was Bruce Wayne… It seemed the best place to have the
conversation. On a gargoyle fifty stories above street level, they would be
Batman and Catwoman, unquestionably… but the Tower would be there in easy
view. A tie to their life together, to Bruce and Selina.

“What a manipulative bastard you can be?” he imagined
her saying. He envisioned her as she’d been on the stage of the Hijinx
Playhouse: her stance, her tone, savagely witty, unnervingly on target with
her critiques, and blunting it all with the naughty grin and a turn of that
curvy hip. “A protocol, Bruce? Don’t you think I deserve better after all
this time?”

“Picking a time and place you’d be most receptive,
what’s wrong with that?” he asked, in Bruce’s voice, while Psychobat
scowled. Batman did not discuss his methods, Batman did not explain or
excuse, Batman did not—

“Lie to yourself if you want, Bruce, but don’t lie to
me. It’s a protocol. It’s the Catwoman-Cat-Tales Protocol 1a, the very
first one you made that night sitting in that theatre when you saw it really
was me on that stage. ‘New information I can use against her.’ You sat
there through Act I with your protocol-writing wheels turning. Don’t think
I’m unaware you were mining Cat-Tales for material all this time. If I
didn’t love you, it might piss me off, but since—”

“1a was your name in the program. 1b,
you said in your bio you were born on the Upper West Side. 1c was your
living near the park—the mock interview where said you’d get morning coffee
from Raoul’s cart. 1d was—”

“Fine, it wasn’t the first. Point is, it’s a
protocol. And you shouldn’t be playing those games with me on this.”

“It’s not exactly mind control, Selina, it’s—

“It’s cheap.”

“—using every advantage available to me. Setting the
stage isn’t manipulation or psychological warfare, it’s just choosing the
time and place to talk in an atmosphere that’s most conducive to the
message. I wanted to do it someplace you’ll be comfortable and receptive,
since it’s a proposal you’re not going to like.”

“No,” the imaginary Catwoman said, hands on her hips
and a foreboding scowl that rivaled his own. “I’m really not.”

Ivy failed to stifle a laugh, and Jonathan Crane shot
them both a look. It was true that many survivors of Catholic schools
retained a certain dread of women in habit, as he was reminded riding the
subway in his present disguise. That didn’t mean he “liked dressing up” or
would do it for fun—although he might explore some nun-centric fear toxins
at a later date. (Sphenisciphobia? Or was that the fear of penguins? He
couldn’t remember.) At the moment, though, his priority was reaching that
later date in one piece, so he’d let Dent’s revolting ‘high school jock
mocking the nerd to impress the cheerleader’ performance slide (for now).

“Puddin’s coming?” Harley asked—drawing simultaneous
eye rolls from Ivy and Clayface, and another coin flip from Two-Face. This
time the coin must have decreed silence, because he kept his wisecrack to
himself and simply cleared his throat:

“Not everyone is coming. Circumstances forced us to
rely on Roxy to get the word out.”

“She’s the only one who doesn’t mind going around to
all the hideouts that may already be rigged to explode,” Hagen interjected
before Harvey concluded:

“And she wasn’t able to reach everybody. We don’t even
know where the Riddler’s current lair is, for example.”

“Yeah, but c’mon, Selina, Oswald…” Firefly squeaked.

“Selina is not answering her phone for the same reason,
we imagine, we are not answering ours. They were BLOWN UP!” Two-Face
thundered. Then he looked guiltily at his coin, flipped, and appeared
chastened. “We’ll give Oswald and Joker five more minutes,” he grumbled.
“In the meantime, our better half would like to talk to Harley and Ivy
privately...” Assorted chortling at that, which Two-Face silenced by
stretching out his arm, holding his coin sideways like a rapper pointing a
handgun, and panning it across the room. “…and take their statements,” he
concluded.

Since the real Catwoman took up space her imaginary
twin did not, and it wasn’t ‘a gargoyle built for two,’ she and Batman
settled on the ledge it supported as he laid out his findings from the
Jinatra’s explosion. All the forensic evidence confirmed Selina’s
eyewitness testimony: a molotov cocktail igniting a volatile supply of fuel
left at the scene. The molotov is not a precise or efficient tool for a
professional hit. It’s typically used to send a warning or to point the
finger at an amateur group without expertise or resources.

“Like those protestors in Egypt last year,” Catwoman
noted. “Best weapon they could put together on the spur of the moment.”

“Correct. So for a better financed operation, it’s a
way to incriminate them. Luthor once took out a rival research lab that
way, using a poorly-made molotov to put the blame on a student group that
had been protesting animal testing.”

“But that’s not the case here,” Catwoman prompted.

“No, because of the backpack. A professional would
anticipate all that’s happened since the explosion: a surviving witness
and/or the forensic evidence revealing the scene was preset with fuel and
explosives. There is a professional out of Philadelphia who’s known to
employ those methods. A freelancer who works mostly for the Bigliotti
Family. And the Bigliottis have close ties to the Pelaccis…”

He left the sentence unfinished, for Selina to connect
the final dots herself. Pelaccis as in Keystone City Pelaccis. Pellaci as
in ‘Joey the Bull’ Pelacci.

“Pelacci as in ’The Pelacci-Marcuso Wedding’ Pelaccis,”
she said softly.

“Which you and Harvey trashed.”

“Hey, I was trying to put out fires, remember?”

“I doubt Joey the Bull is making those distinctions.
Although given the location, it’s likely that Harvey was the target and your
being with him was an unexpected bonus.”

“HEY!”

“Catwoman, please. We need to stay focused on the
issues,” Batman graveled.

“Oh, I knew this was coming. On the off chance that
whoever blew up Jinatra’s was really gunning for me, you want me to blow off
the opera. Let Eddie go ahead with whatever he’s planning, cut me out of
the fun, you take him on solo while I’m stuck at home watching Fawlty Towers
with Alfred.”

Batman’s mouth dropped open. It was very slight, and
it only lasted for a moment… The opera? She was still thinking about
Riddler and the opera? …but on a Gotham rooftop, it was still an all but
unprecedented occurrence. Impossible woman.

“Not exactly. I had forgotten all about the opera,” he
lied. “There’s more evidence than the police are aware of. Oracle was
going over the social network chatter about your explosion—”

“My explosion?”

“Yes, please don’t interrupt. In looking for any
details ‘tweeted’ by bystanders who didn’t come forward, she found what
looks like another occurrence: motorcycle driving erratically, passenger had
an ‘open container’…a bottle. They were thinking ‘drunk driver,’ not
molotov cocktail. And since this one doesn’t appear to have triggered the
desired explosion, there was no 9-11 call, no incident report. The police
aren’t aware anything’s happened.”

“But you think something did, and it’s connected.”

Batman gave a slight, barely perceptible nod.

“The location. The person who tweeted about the drunks
joyriding on a motorcycle was about two blocks from Ivy’s greenhouse.”

Before the acid, Harvey Dent was a master at handling
women. Not just socially as the womanizing “Dentmeister,” but in situations
like this:

“And I thought ‘Hey, that’s the pushy gal from the
greenhouse riding bitch on that rice rocket.”

It was his special gift as a prosecutor. Not
questioning the witnesses formally in front of a jury, but this: deposing
them beforehand. In open court, you only asked a question when you knew the
answer. But this process, the pre-interviews in his office (or in this
case, in the remotest corner of the St. Winifred’s basement), you had no
idea what you were going to get. You didn’t get to pick what kind of people
witnessed a crime. Some were observant and articulate…

“Crack-a-bomp-bomp-BOOM-crackle-ba-bomp”

…some were Harley. Whoever they were, you had to be
able to read them. Listen to what they said, of course, but hear what they
weren’t saying underneath. Sometimes they lied: a wife doesn’t want
to admit a husband’s infidelity so she insists the panties in the love nest
were hers. Sometimes they were mistaken: a shop owner doesn’t want to
believe her employees are stealing, so it has to have been an outside job.
The lock has to have been forced by someone who didn’t have a key, so she
doesn’t recall ever seeing those scratches on the door… Whether they were
honest and observant, had an agenda, or were blinded by bias, you had to be
able to evaluate the person you were talking to. And for some reason,
Harvey always found the fairer sex remarkably easy to read.

“And Red was standin’ in the middle a the street
shaking her fist at ‘em.”

Harvey heard the intake of breath behind him and held
up his hand to forestall Ivy’s interruption. It was obvious that Harley had
perceived something in the woman’s manner towards Ivy, and it was equally
obvious that she was jealous. It was clear that Ivy was oblivious on both
counts. Whether the woman was actually flirting was up for grabs:
Pammy could be spectacularly dense if she hadn’t deliberately set out to
seduce someone. Harvey sometimes wondered if she didn’t fall back on those
pheromones just to be sure. If the poor bastard wasn’t throwing himself at
her feet, she really couldn’t tell if he was interested… Harley was the
opposite. She imagined signals that weren’t really there…

Harvey asked a few more questions, mostly related to
the discovery of the backpack, made a final note on his legal pad, and then
looked up over his shoulder at Ivy. Normally, his good side would have said
“Now then, you wish to rebut?” (with a smirk that conveyed the enormity of
the understatement without overtly saying anything rude.) His bad side
would push for something more: call her a controlling bitch who should be
marching around in thigh boots, cracking a whip at every man she saw—and
would be if only it wouldn’t lead to all those men comparing her to
Catwoman—reowl!

But today, even his good-side response wasn’t quite
good enough. Charm was called for, the pre-acid Dentmeister charm which had
never failed with female jurors, with witnesses, or with Pamela Isley
herself.

“Okay, Petal,” he smiled. “You’ve been very patient.
Now let’s hear your version from the beginning.”

Ivy had got as far as clipping the forsythia after the
mysterious customer’s visit and departure—apparently you have to cut back
the forsythia immediately after it flowers, and even though it had nothing
to do with the attempt to murder her, she felt it was important they
all know—when her story was interrupted by the first late arrival.

“Outrageous, kwak, kwak-kwak,” Oswald began. At first
everyone thought he meant the indignity of dressing like a nun, but by the
third ‘kwak’ it was clear he was angrier than the rest of them—or at the
very least, his anger had more focus. “Phone calls to my private office
demanding I ‘declare my intentions’ as either a Rogue or a mobster—KWAK!
As if nameless cranks may simply call up Oswald Cobblepot making demands.
And no sooner do I hang up from what I thought was a mere insolent crank,
the front entrance to the Iceberg is torn up by gunfire—positively torn up.
That is gold leaf in the front arch—gold leaf! It is outrageous—KWAK!
Simply outrageous. We must take a stand—take a stand I tell you!” He paused
here to lift his umbrella like a sword, a warlord rallying his troops for
battle. “We must establish through acts that cannot be misunderstood, one
does NOTthreaten the likes of Oswald Cobblepot nor commit vandalism
upon his property—KWAK-kwakwakwak.”

“These mob bullies!” Jonathan cried. “Thinking
they can strike fear into us? Us?! We will show them terror.”

Victor turned in the manner that, in anyone else, is
called a slow burn.

“Hotheads,” he said frostily. He didn’t like this kind
of passionate call to action. He didn’t trust it. “Vengeance is a hard,
cold business,” he declared. “It should be embarked on with icy patience
and resolve.”

Passion was nothing but heat, and heat was not to be
trusted… But if he didn’t like these heated calls to action, he also didn’t
like the Iceberg being shot up. He wanted quiet. The serene stillness of a
frozen landscape. The city in turmoil, his fellow Rogues up in arms, it was
not acceptable. It had to be stopped.

“You really think Joe Pelacci is gunning for all the
Rogues who were at that wedding?” Selina asked, looking out over the city as
her mind flipped through the possibilities.

“Ruining his little girl’s wedding and a hoped-for
alliance with Carmine, vendettas have begun with much less,” Batman replied.

“Oh boy,” Selina said, running her hand over the top of
her cowl and down the back of her hair. “This is going to escalate fast. I
mean, we were all there: Jonathan, Hagen, Joker… not like it’s a
peace-love-and-sunshine crowd to begin with.”

For the first time since he’d known her, it was
Psychobat who produced the lip-twitch in response to something she said. He
never thought she realized how viciously dangerous her fellow Rogues were.
Now it seems she did know… Why she befriended them anyway, that was a new
mystery.

“Yes, they are all extremely ruthless,” he agreed.
“Well-armed, and dangerously smart. This will escalate fast. But
there is an opportunity and I want you to consider it very seriously.
Selina, look at me, I want you to consider this very seriously…”

She looked curiously, a hint of a smile dancing on the
corner of her lips.

“Melodramatic as always, even for a man in a cape.”

“Selina Kyle was attacked this afternoon, and as you
explained so painstakingly to those detectives, Bruce Wayne wants to protect
her. If you let him—if ‘Bruce and Selina’ leave Gotham, go to Monaco or St.
Thomas until this all blows over—then the Cat-Tales genie is back in the
bottle. Selina Kyle was just an actress playing a role. No more ‘Is she or
isn’t she?’ If Selina’s left Gotham and Catwoman is still here, you have
your anonymity back.”

“Mobsters? Fucking mobsters did this? Some
Pacino-wannabe tried to BLOW ME UP?!” she shrieked. “Blow up MY
BABIES?! Blow up HARLEY?! Forget the ‘terror’ crap, Jonathan.
You can make them piss themselves if and when I decide I’m finished, but
FIRST they’ll wash my feet with their tears. THEN they’ll lay on their
faces and make a full confession of their crimes, they will BEG Harley AND
my orchids for forgiveness, and then… then I’ll think of something. And
until I do, they will go out and empty every bank account, bring me every
dirty dollar they’ve got, and send every last fucking one of their ‘button
men’ or whatever they’re called out to plant a tree!”

It was the hottest thing Harvey Dent had ever seen.
First she got pretty loud, but then she got really quiet and that… that was…
damn, that was… she was… damn, Petal…

“THEY WILL PAY! Those lowdown men will suffer as no
one has ever suffered. They will pray for death, but the goddess will not
be answering their prayers. They are just going to go on suffering and
suffering unless and until I get bored. Then Jonathan can have them.”

Out came the coin. Flip. Catch. Look. And then…

“Damn, Petal, we think we just had one.”

“Just tell me you’ll think about it,” Batman said,
pleased that the idea didn’t get the kneejerk ‘no’ he was expecting. She
could take the night to mull it over, ‘Bruce and Selina’ could leave in the
morning and he would reactivate the old protocols to establish that Bruce
Wayne was in hiding at the Hôtel de Paris. J’onn could arrange for Selina
to be photographed at the casino just as easily as he did Bruce, and—

“Congratulations.”

“What?”

“I said congratulations. You know how I always used to
say that you don’t scare me. Every other crook who’s knocked over a liquor
store in this town is just terrified of The Bat-Man but not me? Well,
that’s done now. Congratulations, you’ve managed to make me that Halloween
cat with the arched back and the standing up fur.”

“I assume this is a no,” Batman growled. “Could we
have less cutesy and more specifics as to why?”

“Look, I get that you’re upset about what happened to
me this afternoon, but you’ve got to stop trying to ‘fix it’ retroactively,
because you’re obviously not thinking clearly. And you really shouldn’t be
out in this condition. Not if, you know, the Bat-brain is out of
commission.”

This was answered by what Rogues and members of the
Justice League refer to as the ‘glare of death.’ As always, it had no
effect whatsoever on Selina.

“Look, Bruce and Selina leave town, Catwoman is still
here, ergo Selina can’t be Catwoman. That’s the plan, right? Well think
about it, that’s fine for Richard Flay and Gladys Ashton-Larraby, but the
people who knew me before will still know Selina is Catwoman/Catwoman is
Selina.”

“Of course,” he said wearily. “It’s not meant to be a
100% reset, it can only close that one vulnerability opened up by
Cat-Tales. The people who knew you before will still—”

“Right! Now think about who those people are.”

“…”

“Harvey, Oswald, Pammy…”

“Yes, Rogues. I don’t see what you’re getting at.”

“Bruce and Selina leave. Catwoman is still here. Ergo
Selina can’t be Catwoman—but she is. Now, I assume Batman is
still going to be in town too, while Bruce is off with Selina who can’t be
Catwoman but is. Think about it! Do you really want to leave that kind of
parallel just laying out there for any of them to trip over?”

“…”

Catwoman swallowed.

“It’s not… you… to miss something like that,”
she said gently. “I know you’re upset; I saw it at the hospital. And I’m
sure going back to the crime scene didn’t help matters, seeing the charred
tables and everything, but… please. Protect me later, at home, when it’s
just us.” She whispered the last words as if it alluded to a sex game, and
then continued in a normal voice. “Because out here, I don’t need
‘protecting,’ I need ‘Batman.’ Gotham needs Batman—really needs you if
we’re seconds away from a full-bore Rogues versus Mobs war.”

As she spoke, all emotion had drained from Batman’s
eyes, leaving only a gaze of focused control and icy detachment. It held
for a heartbeat, then the ice melted and emotion slowly returned… and with
it, a long, slow smile of deep and quiet menace.

“Not green for the opera,” he said in a poisonous voice
that was barely human. “That purple and black thing you’ve got, the
strapless that’s almost the same shade as your costume. Hair up, nothing to
pull focus from your neck. We might have to improvise the jewelry…”

A limousine with tinted windows slid soundlessly around
the corner a few blocks from Edward Nigma’s last known lair. It was the
kind of car you saw in movies just before the window rolled down and the
black menacing barrel appeared from the dark to give silent death to the
unfortunate target, but tonight, a different peril lay in wait. Inside,
wide knees spread between two of the back seats. Fist to his masked mouth
in an unconscious Rodan’s The Thinker pose, Bane contemplated his
next move.

It was a long shot. But he had to try it. Tetch would
have squealed, long and loud, he knew. He had chosen his target carefully;
not a Rogue of high threat level. Not yet. But one who would make noise;
one who was, as their “Gossip Gertie,” positioned to make a lot of noise in
a lot of ears.

It was only a matter of time before it was noticed.

Bane drummed his big fingers on his chin. But it
hadn’t been. And that meant something was wrong. He’d calculated the
little wretch’s injuries would not inhibit his ability to talk. He had been
most patient in that regard. Holding back so much of his strength to avoid
cracking the insipid creature like an egg was not satisfying in the
slightest to a warrior of his caliber, but it was necessary.

Perhaps the others had considered Tetch to be ‘crying
wolf’ and ignored him thusly. That could be capitalized upon, then. It
would create a greater shock to their complacency if he next selected a much
more dangerous target; an A-list Rogue.

The first time he had appeared, he had beaten down
Killer Croc to prove his physical superiority. That was the strategy, honed
in his prison upbringing; find the meanest, biggest, strongest dog on the
block and knock him off his perch to shake the status quo and establish your
power. But he had been foolish to assume that size and strength were the
basis of power in this world outside the prison walls. For all the menacing
stature and fortitude that would have made him an ideal baron-behind-bars in
Bane’s hellish birthplace, on the streets of Gotham City, Croc was not
feared one tenth as much as the Joker.

Bane knew that now, and was smart enough to know why;
he knew Joker’s type, the flamboyant serial killer, always one step ahead of
the authorities, seemingly harmless or entertaining but a cold-blooded
monster underneath. There were plenty of those at Peña Dura, though he
could safely say he had never met one on quite the level of Gotham’s “Clown
Prince of Crime.” Even Bane had to admit the Joker occupied his own special
niche in the pecking order, and that ironically made him quite unsuitable as
the next hit.

No, the Joker must be left for last. He stood too
separate from their society; to destroy him too early would leave half of
his targets terrified but half of them relieved or even rejoicing. He
needed their fear and uncertainty. He needed to hit someone they would see
as untouchable because of some quality that raised them above lesser men.
And to strike at an enemy renowned only for physical strength, like Croc,
would only reinforce their foolish idea of Bane as nothing more than a
steroid-case bruiser. No, he needed to find an enemy famed for his mind,
his unparalleled genius, and leave him shattered beyond repair in his own
innermost sanctum.

He needed to destroy the Riddler.

Now if only he could find him…

Casing the Riddler’s former lairs, he’d found no clever
clues or encoded puzzles; only empty warehouse after empty loft after empty
basement. Bane felt the frustration knotting at the base of his skull but
refused to let it infect him. He was challenging a man of vast intellect,
he could not expect it to be easy. The easiest – and most satisfying – part
would come at the last moment, when Edward Nigma was within pummeling range
and at Bane’s mercy. But as he consoled himself with this pleasurable
image, muffled shouting drifted into his thoughts.

Bane glanced out the window to see a blonde man of
considerable – by most standards, not his own – musculature hammering on the
door to Nigma’s lair. He noted the swell and definition of the calves, pecs
and biceps – earned through gym work, not through hard labor. This was a
man focused on appearance, then… but unshaven, his hair untidy and not
recently cut – fallen on hard times... A clash of differing levels of
self-respect, one desired and one actual. Caucasian, possibly Nordic or
Gallic descent, but with a deep bronzed tan, not faked, an outdoorsman, but
fading slightly from gloomy Gotham weather – a man accustomed to a much
sunnier clime who has lived for some time in the city. That and the alert,
cagey way the man paced, the self-absorbed indignant tone as he hammered on
Nigma’s door, shouting his name – “Nigma,” not “Riddler” – someone familiar
with the notorious criminal personally, outside his tabloid persona, and
considering himself close enough to go banging on the fellow’s door in the
middle of the night – punctuated by the almost-feline pause and poised
tension as he spotted the black limo gliding into view at the end of the
street.

Thomas Blake, then. Big game hunter turned themed
criminal. C-list, barely worth his time. But the way he looked at Bane’s
limousine, hired with money drawn from the hidden accounts he had stowed
away from his time as Gotham’s sole kingpin (which the real Batman would
have found and shut down, and the amateur Azrael had failed to…) gave clear
indication to Bane that Blake thought the limousine was there for him.

And that piqued Bane’s interest. “Here, Manuel,” he
whispered to the driver, and got out of the car.

Tom Blake’s eyes immediately widened in shock, “You!”

“You were expecting someone else?”

Blake scowled, “Those goons you had tailing me were
sloppy enough, no match for a hunter’s senses. I was expecting a fight, but
you’re a surprise. What do you want?”

Bane paused a moment. Interesting. So someone else
had been following him, and – bravado aside – put the fear into him. He’d
come running to Nigma, and that meant his lair was simply the closest, as
from what Bane knew of Blake there was little love lost between him and his
criminal peers. It was time for a test.

Bane rolled a shrug, “Very good, Señor Blake. I should
not have underestimated your ability to track man or beast, even in this
urban jungle. Do me at least the courtesy of telling me how you spotted my
men?”

Blake snorted, “Cheap suits, the kind you wouldn’t mind
getting blood on. Cheap cologne. The way the tall one was loitering around
gnawing on a street stall pizza slice. Scuffed shoes and loud ties… and I
could pick their guns from the way they were standing. And not just the
obvious guns. Your goons need lessons in subtlety.”

“So it seems,” said Bane, and you need lessons in
Gotham City, hunter, he thought, those aren’t hired henches. They’re
Mafia footmen.

“If you were hoping to follow me to Nigma,” Blake said,
shifting from foot to foot in that antsy way Bane knew well from a hundred
toughs fixing to start a brawl in the prison yard, “You’re out of luck.
He’s gone. They’re all gone, gone to ground somewhere.”

“Except you, señor,” Bane observed, casually, “Did you
perhaps not get the memo?”

He was unprepared for the response. Blake tensed,
stomped his foot like a child, then started ranting.

“Oh, yeah, because I don’t count, do I? I, the Catman,
possessed of the cloak made from the fabric of the fabled Nephren-Ka,
granting me the nine lives of a cat – yes, that doesn’t count at all, does
it? Because they’re all busy licking the boots of that purple-clad bitch,
and she doesn’t like me, so who gets ostracized? And why do you think that
is?”

“I cannot imagine.”

“I’ll give you a clue!” Blake spat angrily, cupped his
hands over his chest and jiggled an imaginary bosom.

Bane cleared his throat. “You paint a clear picture,
señor,” and he did indeed. A man apart from a crowd, shunned and
disrespected – Tom Blake was a distorted mirror, and it put Bane’s teeth on
edge. This ‘Catman’ could be a potential ally, he realized, but something
held him back from offering. Perhaps it was the whiny, self-pitying subtext
lurking under the anger. Perhaps it was the insult to Catwoman – the only
one of the “Rogues Gallery” who’d come to him personally to offer her
allegiance during his reign of crime. She alone had respected him.
Had seen what he had done in reducing their alpha crimefighter to a ruin, a
cripple… he would not brook a dishonor to her name.

“Lesson one,” Bane said quietly when Blake started to
continue, “Respect starts within. You cannot demand the respect of others
if you have none for yourself.”

“What is that supposed to—”

“Do you know who I am?”

“You’re Bane. The bruiser with the Venom steroids who
broke Batman a few years back.”

“Do you see a Venom tank on my back now?”

Blake admitted he did not. Bane continued, “Then you
can see that I have no unfair advantage over yourself.” Then he pulled on a
pair of fingerless gloves. Catman stared incredulously. “Stand up, Thomas
Blake,” said Bane, “Show me fists instead of words. If you can conquer the
man who broke the Batman, you will have proven yourself well worthy of their
respect… and mine.”

“I’m… I’m not going to fight you—”

“If you face defeat with courage, I may even respect
you a little. But if you shrink from the challenge,” Bane added, dropping
his voice to a metal whisper, “You’ll just be another smear of shit on my
shoe. To be wiped off and forgotten. Are you ready to be forgotten, Mr.
Blake?”

Tom Blake gritted his teeth and clenched his fists,
falling into a combat stance.

Neck. A hard forearm to the neck wasn't cinematic, but
it had a way of chopping up the breathing. Like any man who felt the slap
of hard flesh across his windpipe, the sensation took over his thinking, it
blocked every other thought for seconds after the blow dissipated. As long
as the sting remained, there was no torque on the end of Tom Blake's blows,
no leveraging of weight behind his blocks, and opening after opening in his
jostling, nervy battle stance. With that, it would be open season on his
ribs.

♫-Sing
with us, sweet Seraphim

“Anything is a stronghold sitting on a mountain of
ice,” Victor pointed out, shooting a blast of freeze ray to prove his point.

Ear. One hard blow to the ear, with the base of the
right hand. Bane twisted his hand backward to make contact where the lower
outside edge of the palm met his wrist, which despite the amount of flesh
and muscle created a pointier edge than an ordinary flathand slap. Aiming
that point for the center of Blake’s ear would drive the blow in just a
little farther. The goal was disrupting his balance, but often as not it
produced ear-ringing a well, which threw the strongest opponents off their
game.

“Except for being controlled by people with whistles
and keys,” Crane said peevishly.

♫-Salve

Eyes. If you hit them right, they swelled and closed.
Pain a warrior would ignore; being unable to see was not a matter of will.

♫-Salve

Sitting together a short distance away, Ivy’s eyes met
Harvey’s.

“They’re all idiots,” she whispered.

“We noticed.”

“You know what I noticed?” she asked in the old
pillow-talk tone. “You haven’t taken the coin out for anything but a few
wisecracks. Not feeling at all conflicted, I presume?”

“Not a bit.”

“That’s what I figured. Both of you hate the mobs.”

Wall. It wasn’t a vulnerability. It wasn’t a part of
Tom Blake’s body. But the parts of his body that weren’t particularly
vulnerable like his shoulders, hips, and the back of his skull reacted
poorly to being hurled into it by the force of Bane’s ferocious backhand.
There was no climactic crack as there had been with Batman, but the grim
crunch of compacting cartilage as bone met brick was just as definitive: the
fight was over.

Bane turned his back on the scene as serenely as a man
strolling through a park. This time, his message would be heard.